Abia State pensioners yesterday commenced a two-day prayer summit to ask God to cause payment of their pensions arrears that have accumulated from 2014 to date.

This is coming about a week after Governor Okezie Ikpeazu set up a committee headed by the state Head of Service, Onyii Wamah, to come up with modalities for complete settlement of outstanding workers’ salaries, pensions, and gratuities and end a future occurrence.

Although Governor Ikpeazu’s government inherited part of the arrears, the pensioners who organised the prayer summit under the aegis of Concerned Abia Pensioners, lamented that their unpaid gratuities had accumulated for 19 years as pensions were not harmonised between 1998 and 2010 with the least paid pensioner still on N500 monthly stipend.